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While it’s not a traditional Christmas film, it starts (and finishes) in a well-decorated store in the run-up to Christmas. Kate Beckinsale is perfect as Sara, a young woman who wants to buy some black gloves. At the same moment, Jonathan (John Cusack) tries to take hold of them, as a present for his girlfriend. The two start by both claiming them, then insisting that the other have them - it feels quite believable, and shows their very likeable personalities right at the start.
Eventually Sara buys them, and agrees to treat Jonathan to some iced chocolate. They have a lot to talk about, and he is clearly very attracted to her; but they are both in other relationships. They part… and then for different reasons, bump into each other again, and decide to go ice skating…
Sara is a strong believer in fate, or serendipity. She says that if it’s right for them to be together at some point in the future, then fate will make it happen. To test this theory, she writes her name and number in the flyleaf of a book, and he writes his on a dollar bill. And both these numbers go into the wild…
We see fate, as it were, playing tricks on them when they get in different lifts in a hotel, and just miss each other. So they part, and time passes… Jonathan keeps looking out for a copy of the book where Sara wrote her details, but never finds it. And, in the meantime, he becomes engaged to the beautiful Halley (Bridget Moynahan).
But although everything seems to be ideal, he can’t get Sara out of his mind. He confides in his good friend Dean (Jeremy Piven) who works as a journalist. Dean is shocked that Jonathan might be thinking of anyone except Halley, but eventually agrees that he needs some kind of closure. So they embark on a journey of research with very little to go on.
Sara, meanwhile, is living with Lars (John Corbett) and agrees to marry him. He’s a musician, and not very reliable… and she starts to realise how she is far less important to him than his career.
The eventual outcome is inevitable, given the initial premise, and it’s very well done, with ‘fate’ once again intervening. There are some low-key humorous (though also frustrating) moments, when Sara and Jonathan come very close to spotting each other, but not quite. There is some clever dialogue, too, and some quite amusing scenes involving an uptight employee at a large department store (Eugene Levy). I felt very sorry for Halley, but we don’t find out what happens with her.
The chemistry between the two principles is excellent, even at the beginning when they are just starting to get to know each other. Of course the premise is a bit ridiculous; to find someone by chance in New York is pretty much impossible without any details. And the idea of finding a book - or, worse, a money note - even more unlikely. So towards the end one has to suspend reality just a tad. But, as explained in one of the ‘extras’ on our DVD, fate is like an unknown extra character, guiding the characters’ destiny.
There’s a great pace to this film, and I particularly appreciated that there’s very little bad language, with nothing that would be considered ‘strong’. There’s no nudity or scenes of intimacy, other than a brief scenario seen from the back, through a window. Other than that,there are only a handful of references to sex. The rating is PG, though the US puts it at PG-13. I can’t imagine anyone younger than about fourteen would be interested in it anyway.
Recommended if you’d like something that starts at Christmas, and includes a couple of carols, and yet isn’t a traditional Christmas film at all. It’s one of the few films that’s truly a romantic comedy, or at least a romantic film with humorous moments.
As well as the 'making of' extra, our DVD has some deleted scenes, which we enjoyed watching; one or two of them, we thought, could well have been included.
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